A festival in Limerick is drawing on influences as diverse as flamenco, seannós and African dancing, with drumming to match, writes Michael Seaver
Fusion is all around us, whether it's Afro-Celtic music, Cal-Ital food or Shaker-Japan interior design. In Limerick this week, various forms of percussive dance have come together, drawing on influences as diverse as African, sean nós and Appalachian clog dancing. The three-day festival, Tráth na gCos, is in its sixth year, nurtured all along by Catherine Foley, who directs the postgraduate courses in ethnochoreology - choreology is the notation of dance movement - and traditional dance at the University of Limerick.
"The first Tráth na gCos just brought together dancers from local traditions," she says. "I wanted to bring together interesting Irish dancers from the margins, not competition dancers or people from the shows. Then we began expanding and included Scottish dance and flamenco."
This year, Sandy Silva from Canada, whose influences include Appalachian clog dance and flamenco, will share a seminar and performance with the former Riverdance star Colin Dunne, the sean nós dancer Seósamh Ó Neachtáin and the African dance specialist Peter Badejo OBE. The OBE was awarded for his tireless work in promoting contemporary African dance in Britain, through his teaching and performance group, Peter Badejo Arts.
His workshops at the Irish World Music Centre over the past few days have included forays into African dance, singing and drumming, which all find resonance in the centre's master's degrees in contemporary and traditional dance, ethnochoreology and chant. With the musician Emmanuel Tagoe, he coaxes the participants through moves and songs with the minimum of explanation, encouraging them to copy his movements and utterances. Just as traditional musicians and dancers learn by listening and looking, the class patiently repeats the phrases, soon developing an unthinking unison movement or chant.
Rhythm is at the heart of Tráth na gCos. The writer Roderyk Lange claims that the concept of rhythm stems from our experience of basic bodily actions connected with the use of weight in space and time. After going "down", one has to go "up" in order to be able to move further. The symmetrical nature of the body also imposes essentially repetitive patterns of movement, so we walk left-right, left-right.
Walking on the spot is the starting point for almost all of Badejo's workshop tasks. By its uniformity and continuity, the simple movement diminishes mental effort and takes attention away from physical effort.
Tagoe's drumming workshop introduces some of his drumming alphabet. "You are going to learn four letters: pe-te, pa-ta, pi-ti, bu-dum," he says, the words explaining rhythm and timbre before he even hits a drum. "After you master these, you can then improvise and add your salt and pepper."
While they have much in common, the African and Western traditions still have very distinct languages. "There is no 1-2-3-4 in African chant," says Badejo when the group has difficulty with a syncopated phrase. "When I came to the West, I had to teach by counting, but for me that doesn't make sense. It's like teaching dancers in a studio, in front of mirrors, and then telling them to dance from within."
A much bigger problem is the struggle between tradition and innovation. The dancers are not only addressing but also embodying this thorny issue. Foley and Badejo are keen not to be seen as purists. "I'm not interested in performing step dances from the last century," says Foley, "but I do have a deep understanding and respect for those dances. What I want to do is take that knowledge, the knowledge of those people who made those dances, and allow that filter into contemporary practice. We need to create a contemporary culture out of tradition. What do I need from the past and the present to make my future?"
Dunne is constantly grappling with this question. The centre's dancer-in-residence, he is also taking the contemporary-dance strand of the master's in dance. The discipline of contemporary dance is challenging, but it is incorporating the freedom of the upper body into his step dancing that keeps Dunne awake at night.
The flailing arms in Riverdance were superficially seen to release the stiff upper body in step dancing, but the arms are just as isolated from the torso as the legs. Dunne is striving for a deeper connection between his clattering feet and the rest of his body. He and Mary Nunan, a contemporary-dance teacher, acknowledge incremental changes in his carriage that signal the making of these connections.
The influence of percussive dance also creeps into other forms of dance. Foley proudly reminisces about the time, as a student in London, she received a letter from Dame Ninette de Valois, inviting her to teach Irish step dance to members of the Royal Ballet. African dance has influenced jazz and contemporary dance, and Badejo is keen to point out particular devices, such as the contraction in the technique of Martha Graham, that comes from African rather than Western movement.
His OBE notwithstanding, Badejo still has constant problems promoting contemporary African dance in Britain. "We need a dedicated school that will concentrate on all forms of African dancing. When people think of African dance, they imagine men crouched down, dancing in circles. But Africa is a continent: there are so many different forms of dance from different countries and regions. In east Africa, the dance is very upright, in total contrast to the crouching circles."
Ultimately, events such as Tráth na gCos will benefit everyone. While every dance form has its local issues, many problems, such as tradition versus innovation, are common to all. Although conferences and papers may thrash out some of these, those involved in Trath na gCos believe that coming together and sharing their dances poses - and sometimes answers - questions in a deeper and, ultimately, more enjoyable way.
The Tráth na gCos seminar takes place at 2.30 p.m. today at the Irish World Music Centre, Foundation Building, University of Limerick; there is a concert featuring Peter Badejo, Colin Dunne, Sandy Silva and Seósamh Ó Neachtáin at Limerick City Gallery of Art, Pery Square, at 8 p.m.
